Well, pompous Chase; how do you feel for having sided with Seward?
Gen. Butler's farewell proclamation to New Orleans rings the purest and most patriotic harmony. Compare Butler's with Lincoln's writings. All the hearts in the country resounded with Butler; and because he acted as he did, Lincoln-Seward-Blair-Halleck's policy shelved Butler.
Jan. 3.—By the united efforts of Lincoln-Seward-Blair, of the Herald, and of that cesspool of infamies, the World, of McClellan, and of his tail, by the stupifying influence of Halleck, the Potomac army, notwithstanding its matchless heroism, and equipped as well as any army in Europe; up to this day the Potomac army serves to—establish—the military superiority of the rebels, to morally strengthen, nay, even to nurse the rebellion. Lincoln-Halleck dare not entrust the army into the hands of a true soldier,—Stanton is outvoted. The next commander inherits all the faults generated by Lincoln, McClellan, Halleck, Burnside, and it would otherwise tax a Napoleon's brains to reorganize the army but for the patriotic spirit of the rank and file and most of the officers.
Jan. 3.—What a pity that petty, quibbling constitutionalism alone is understood by Lincoln and by his followers. To emancipate in virtue of a war power is scarcely to perform half the work, and is a full logical incongruity. Like all kind of war power, that of the president has for its geographical limits the pickets of his army—has no executive authority beyond, besides being obligatory only as long as bayonets back it. Such a power cannot change social and municipal conditions, laws or relations (see Vol. I.)
The civil power of the president penetrates beyond the pickets, and in virtue of that civil power, and of the sacred duty to save the fatherland, the President of the United States, and not the Commander-in-Chief, can say to the slaves: "Arise, you are free, you have no servitude, no duties towards a rebel and traitor to the Union. I, the president, dissolve your bonds in the name of the American people."
Jan. 4.—How the tempest of events changes or modifies principles. The South rebelled in the name of State rights, and now Jeff Davis absorbs all States and all parliamentary rights for the sake of salus populi or rather of salus of slavocracy. Jeff Davis nominates officers in the regiments whatever be the opposition of the respective Governors. In the North, the Governors, all of them, (Seymour?) true patriots, insist upon power and the right to organize new regiments, and resist the centralization by the United States Government. Perhaps—as the satraps and martinets assert—thereby the organisation of the army is thrown on a false track. Whether so or not, one thing is certain, but for the States and Governors, Lincoln, Scott, Seward, McClellan, Halleck, or the Union, would be nowhere.
Jan. 4.—They fight battles in the West. Generals, to be victorious, must be in spiritual and in electric communion with the heroic soldiers. So it was at Murfreesborough. Rosecrans, at the head of his cavalry or body guard, dashes in the thickest, and turns the dame fortune, who smiles on heroes, but never smiled on McClellan nor on his tail. Rosecrans sticks not to regulations, and keeps not a few miles in the rear. Franklin, at Fredericksburgh mounted not even his horse but stood in front of his tent. Similar to Rosecrans here was Kearney, the bravest of the brave, more of a captain than any of the West-Point high-nosed nurslings; so is Heintzelman, Hooker, Reno, Sigel and many, many others, whom McClellanism, Halleckism, Lincolnism kept or keeps down.
I positively learned that in the last days of the summer of 1862, a list without heading circulated in the Potomac army, and all who signed it bound themselves to obey only McClellan. The McClellan clique originated this conspiracy, which extended throughout all the grades.
What confusion prevails about the rights of existence of slavery. How they discuss it. How they pettifog. Why not establish the rights of existence of syphilis, of plica in the human body. O, casuists. O, Intelligencers. O, Worlds!
Well, to me, slavery seems to legally (cursed legality) exist in virtue of the special State rights, and not in virtue of the Constitution. But for the State rights, the Africo-American is a man and citizen of the United States—and this under the Constitution which is paramount to State rights. The rebellion annihilates the State rights, and all special constitutions guaranteed by the Union, and at the same time annihilates the relation of the Africo-American to the specific States or constitutions. It restores to him the rights of man guaranteed to him as man by the Union and the Constitution of the United States. The Africo-American recovers his rights, lost and annihilated by specific State rights and municipal, local laws. The president had to issue his proclamation as guardian and executor of the Constitution, and then Africo-Americans recovered their citizenship on firmer and broader grounds than under, or by the war power. Calhoun, the father of the rebellion—as Milton's Satan—and all the rebels now curse or cursed the preamble of the Constitution as Satan cursed the light. I suppose Calhoun's and the rebels' reasons are similar to me. Inde iræ.